The Invest in Kids scholarship program is dead after lawmakers adjourned for the rest of the year, taking with them a chance to extend the program.
The Chicago Teachers Union and its president, Stacy Davis Gates, led the effort to end a state scholarship program that was wildly popular and successful and had no impact on school funding. But this doesn’t have to be the end of school choice in Chicago.
The city can and should enact its own scholarship program through the City Council. The Chicago Public Schools budget sits at a record $9.4 billion, spending the equivalent of about $30,000 per student. There is little if any reason why the City Council can’t divert a portion of the $383 million in annual special city subsidies given to the school district, according to the Chicago Civic Federation.
If the city is going to accrue annual surpluses in its tax increment financing funds, which totaled $1 billion in 2019, that money would be well spent if used to provide the funding for a city-administered and controlled private school scholarship program.
Chicago could use the Invest in Kids income eligibility — which is 300% of the poverty level — as a guide. Scholarships could be capped at $12,000 for high school students and $7,000 for elementary school students. The city scholarship program would cover all families with financial needs, including most public employees subject to the city’s residency policy. An estimated 40% of CPS’ own teachers send their kids to private schools. The cost of such a program would be equal to 4% of the school district’s operating budget.
Much of the cost to the district from new students leaving to attend private schools would be offset by an estimated $12,100 in savings by the district being relieved of the need to educate the scholarship recipient. Districts save money when students use scholarships as the costs are lower than the district support required to educate a student in a district school. Enrollment loss has no impact on the district’s large share of all property tax revenues, which constitute more than half of the district’s funding. Furthermore, Illinois’ general state aid formula partially protects school districts’ enrollment losses.
Private schools can become contract schools. Another approach would be to have parochial and other private schools register as contract school providers. If CPS is enabled to count those students in their headcount for purposes of state and federal aid, it would create a win for students and for the school district. The legalities of this are worth exploring.
Contrary to what teachers unions claim, government funding is not exclusive to public education programs. In fact, there are a plethora of programs that support private education services. Take the Head Start program, federal Pell Grant and the GI Bill, which helps veterans pay for private or public school or training. Illinois’ own Monetary Award Program grants also pay for tuition and other postsecondary educational expenses, awarded based on a student’s financial need.
Public school districts across the nation routinely contract out with private schools to provide special education and other school services. Many states mandate private special education services if the local school district cannot provide it. Overall, enacting a citywide school choice and scholarship program would be a revenue winner for CPS and city residents. But the biggest obstacle would be the CTU, whose primary mission is to eliminate competition.
Look at the money the CTU, combined with other teachers unions, have spent to kill the Invest in Kids scholarship program. Or the CTU efforts to eliminate public school choice by forcing the district to cap the number of charter schools, limit their enrollment and limit charter renewals to two or three years. This will have a devastating effect on the quality of those schools, making it impossible to recruit teachers, retain students and finance capital improvements.
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The Constitution’s equal protection clause states that all children living in the United States have the right to a free public education and should be provided equal educational opportunity. The clause doesn’t mandate it be a government education. Teacher unions have chosen to wrongly interpret this mandate as requiring the exclusive public funding of public schools, while working overtime to deny parents educational choice and limit any community empowerment that threatens their monopoly.
Meanwhile, that same exclusivity is absent from federal and state support for students who attend college and university.
School choice should be at the heart of any truly democratic agenda. America’s socioeconomic Achilles’ heel is its union-dominated, monopolistic public education system. No amount of funding can correct that. Real school choice would allow communities to select models that best serve the community’s needs and poor families to send their public dollars to the school they want their child to attend and have unrestricted access to quality school regardless of where they live or what their household income may be.
It is time to free America’s children and reconstitute its regressive and discriminatory education system. Chicago can lead the way.
Paul Vallas is an adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute. He ran for Chicago mayor this year and in 2019 and was previously budget director for the city and CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
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